Justice Department rejects Texas voter ID law

3/12/12 11:30 AM EDT

The Justice Department has rejected Texas's new voter identification law, concluding that its requirements allowing only certain IDs at the polls are likely to discriminate against Latinos.

"According to the state’s own data, a Hispanic registered voter is at least 46.5 percent, and potentially 120.0 percent, more likely than a non-Hispanic registered voter to lack" a driver's license or official non-driver ID card, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez said in a letter to the Texas Secretary of State's Office Monday.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued a statement calling the decision “no surprise” and vowing to keep up the court fight to implement the statute.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has already held that Voter ID requirements are constitutional and nondiscriminatory, and several other states--including Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and Wisconsin--are allowed to require photo identification to vote,” Abbott said. “Texas should not be treated differently and must have the same authority as other states to protect the integrity of our elections.

Perez's letter (posted here) notes that the new law, known as S.B. 14 and signed by Gov. Rick Perry last May, requires that the state issue special free IDs for voting. However, there would still be a cost to individuals who lack the required underlying documentation, like a birth certificate, Perez wrote.

"There is a statistically significant correlation between the Hispanic population percentage of a county and the percentage of a county’s population that lives below the poverty line. The legislature tabled amendments that would have prohibited state agencies from charging for any underlying documents needed to obtain an acceptable form of photographic identification," Perez noted.

Perez said many voters were likely to have difficulty getting to a Department of Public Safety office to get an ID, either because of distance or limited hours.

"Even after submitting data that show over 600,000 registered voters do not have either a driver’s license or personal identification card issued by DPS – and that a disproportionate share of those registered voters are Hispanic – the state has failed to propose, much less adopt, any program for individuals who have to travel a significant distance to a DPS office, who have limited access to transportation, or who are unable to get to a DPS office during their hours of operation," Perez wrote.

The law specifically dictates that state firearms licenses are valid identification for voting. However, critics have noted that IDs issued by state universities are not among the approved documents.